Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Mischievous god of wisdom, magic and incantations who resides in the ocean under the earth.
Functions
Greenstone cylinder seal TT of the scribe Adda, showing Enki depicted with a flowing stream full of fish; c.2300-2200 BCE. Enki's two-faced minister Isimu stands to his right. (BM 89115). The British Museum. View large image on the British Museum's website.
Cylinder seal TT showing Enki seated on a throne, wearing a horned headdress with a flowing stream full of fish; 2250 BCE (BM 103317). The British Museum. View large image on the British Museum's website.
Limestone wall relief featuring a fish-cloaked apkallu sage TT , from the temple of Ninurta in Kalhu, Assyria; 9th century BCE. (BM 124573). The British Museum. View large image on the British Museum's website.
Babylonian limestone kudurru TT depicting a turtle, which was a symbol of Enki; 1125BC-1100 BCE (BM 102485). The British Museum. View large image on the British Museum's website. Lord of the abzu The god Ea (whose Sumerian equivalent was Enki) is one of the three most powerful gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon, along with Anu and Enlil. He resides in the ocean underneath the earth called the abzu (Akkadian aps), which was an important place in Mesopotamian cosmic geography. For example, the city of Babylon was said to have been built on top of the abzu. Sumerian texts about Enki often include overtly sexual portrayals of his virile masculinity. In particular, there is a metaphorical link between the life-giving properties of the god's semen and the animating nature of fresh water from the abzu. Until recently, however, many of the more explicit details have been suppressed in modern translations (see Cooper 1989; Dickson 2007). Incantations, wisdom and cleaners Ea has associations with wisdom, magic and incantations. He was a favourite god amongst diviners TT (br) and exorcist priests TT (aip) as he is the ultimate source of all ritual knowledge used by exorcists to avert and expel evil. Ea was patron of the arts and crafts, and all
other achievements of civilization. His connection with water meant that Ea was also the patron deity of cleaners (Foster 2005: 151-152). Creator and protector of humanity Ea is the creator and protector of humanity in the Babylonian flood myth Atra-hass and the Epic of Gilgame. He hatched a plan to create humans out of clay so that they could perform work for the gods. But the supreme god Enlil attempted to destroy Ea's newly created humans with a devastating flood, because their never-ending noise prevented him from sleeping. But clever Ea foresaw Enlil's plan; he instructed a sage TT named Atrahasis to build an ark so that humanity could escape the destruction. In the myth Adapa and the South Wind, Ea helps humanity keep the gift of magic and incantations by preventing Adapa from becoming immortal (Foster 2005: 525-530; Izre'el 2001; Michalowski 1980). Ea's creatures Ea was served by his minister, the two-faced god Isimu/Akkadian Usm (pictured to Enki's right in Image 1). Other mythical creatures also dwelt in the abzu with Ea, including the seven mythical sages TT (apkall) who were created for the purpose of teaching wisdom to humanity.
Cult Place(s)
Enki is associated with the city of Eridu on the southern Mesopotamia. Enki's temple was E-abzu (house of the abzu), which was also known as E-engur-ra (house of the subterranean water) or E-unir (Foster 2005: 643-644).
and his creator aspect becomes an increasingly prominent in later literature, a phenomenon that Frymer-Kensky (1992: 70-90) has called the "marginalization of goddesses". Later in the second millennium, rituals and prayers to prevent and remove evil frequently invoked Ea, ama and Marduk as a group. Ea generally provided the spell, Marduk oversaw its implementation and ama provided purification (Foster 2005: 645). Ea also features centrally in a series of royal "bath house: rituals that aimed to restore the king's purity after ominous celestial events. An exorcist recited incantations to the gods on the king's behalf, whilst the king himself bathed to wash away evil. (Robson 2010a; Foster 2005: 643-644). In the Mesopotamian worldview, illnesses and strife were caused by evil demons and divine displeasure. As Ea was master of the exorcists' ritual knowledge, he often featured in firstmillennium incantations performed by exorcists to remove evil or to prevent it from visiting in the first place (examples in Foster 2005: 954-992). In one Neo-Assyrian prayer against evil from the city of Huzirina, a man named Banitu-tere asks Ea to remove the "evil of ominous conditions (and) bad, unfavourable signs" that are present in his house because he is "constantly terrified" of what will happen (STT 1, 67). Prayers for success in divination and protection of kings also invoked Ea.
Iconography
Ea is depicted in Mesopotamian art as a bearded god who wears a horned cap and long robes. Cylinder seals TT often picture him surrounded by a flowing stream with fish swimming inside it representing the subterranean waters of the abzu [Images 1 & 2]. Others depict him inside his underwater home in the abzu, or his E-abzu shrine. (Black and Green 1998: 76; Kramer and Maier 1989: 121-123). Wall reliefs from Ninurta's temple in the Neo-Assyrian city of Kalhu showing figures cloaked in the skin of a fish were (incorrectly) assumed to be representations of Ea during the early twentieth century. These images actually represent the apkallu sages that dwelt in the abzu with Ea, who sometimes took a form that was half-man and half-fish [Image 3]. Ea's symbols include a curved sceptre with a ram's head, a goat-fish TT and a turtle [image 4] (Black and Green 1998: 179). The Sumerian poem Ninurta and the Turtle (ETCSL 1.6.3) describes how Enki created a turtle from the clay of the abzu to help him recover the stolen tablet of destinies, which controls humanity's future. The tablet was stolen by an evil bird-like demon named Anzu, but the hero Ninurta won it back. Ninurta, however, decided to keep it for himself rather than return it to Enki. Yet the ever-cunning Enki thwarted Ninurta's ambitions by creating a turtle that grabbed Ninurta by the heel, dug a pit with its claws and dragged the overambitious hero into it. Though the story is incomplete, presumably the tablet was returned to Enki, and Ninurta was taught a valuable lesson regarding the corrupting nature of power.
dnin-i-k